Contractor sentenced for migrant worker deaths

2018/06/11 18:12:48

Taipei, June 11 (CNA) The Keelung District Court has ruled that a man who illegally hired migrant workers for a road expansion project be held in custody for 50 days and sentenced to six months in prison after two of the workers died in an accident at the construction site.

The sentence can be commuted to a fine. The case can still be appealed.

The 58-year-old employer surnamed Chen (陳), a formwork contractor working on the expansion project, hired four Indonesian workers who had left their original employers and no longer had valid work permits.

On March 27, 2017, Chen directed three of them to dismantle the formwork for a tall concrete column and the trio fell to the ground when the steel forms collapsed, the court said in its judgment.

One died on the spot and another one was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead later in the day, according to the court.

The court said the sentence for the contractor's offense would normally have been heavier, but it was reduced because Chen admitted to professional negligence that led to the two workers' deaths and paid compensation to the workers' families.